A report claiming the “world’s largest [or biggest] tortoise” or in some variants, a turtle, was recently found in the Amazon River--with an accompanying--is fake.
The article says the tortoise is the oldest at “around 529 years old / height-59 feet/ weight-800 pounds OR 362.87 kg incredible… Amazing.”
“The red rimmed tortoise is also called the red-foot or red-legged tortoise, the Brazilian giant tortoise, or South American forest tortoise, as well as local names such as morrocoy, woyamou or wayamo, or some variation of jabuta,” it reads, adding: “Their main diet is a plant that is native to the Chtac Province region of Brazil. These flowers of this plant have a gene in them which promotes increased cellular life.” It then claims it was discovered by person with only the surname Haughton in 1892.
It then shows a photo of the giant reptile on the back of a flatbed truck as people watch.
Another variant of the article claims the tortoise was mutated by radiation leaked by the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan.
However, the tortoise isn’t real. The photo was lifted from the Japanese film “Gamera the Brave” in 2006. The giant turtle, named Gamera, is taken to a research facility and the image that’s being circulated was lifted from the movie.
An article that is spreading the hoax has more than 170,000 “likes” on Facebook. It also appears that at least one media entity has been duped by the hoax as well.
There’s also a video being circulated around with Middle Eastern music of the purported “world’s biggest tortoise,” which is also fake.
The article also states that the tortoise was found in the Amazon River when tortoises, unlike turtles, are land-dwelling reptiles and cannot swim.
The world’s largest tortoise is the Galápagos giant tortoise located on the namesake islands in South America. Some can weigh as much as 800 pounds but are much, much smaller than the fake “tortoise” depicted in the hoax articles.
